Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose has advised President
Mohammadu Buhari to respect the democratic principles of separation of
powers by allowing the judiciary to do its job, obey court orders and
focus on proper prosecution of people accused of corruption rather
than castigating the judiciary and making the arm of government to
appear as the stumbling block in his fight against corruption.
The governor also urged the President to tell Nigerians the truth
about the Boko Haram insurgency, saying; "They keep telling us that
they have defeated Boko Haram technically while Nigerians are still
being killed daily by Boko Haram, with over 100 people killed in
Dalori, less than 12km to Maiduguri, Borno State capital. Isn't it now
necessary for the President to fulfill his promise of leading from the
front and getting his Information Minister, Lai Mohammed to go and
hold a press briefing in Sambasa forest unguarded by military men so
as to show to Nigerians that indeed, they have defeated Boko Haram
technically?"
Speaking through his Special Assistant on Public Communications and
New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said the President should
have simply told the whole world that he hated the Nigeria Judiciary
because he lost the petitions that he filed against his electoral
defeats in 2003, 2007 and 2011 instead of hiding under the fight
against corruption to ventilate his anger.
The governor, who said there was nothing wrong with the legal system
in Nigeria, added that "in recent times, politicians like President
Buhari are the ones responsible for the wrath in the judiciary because
of their desperation to use the courts to foist one party state on
Nigerians with conflicting judgments from election tribunals."
He said making noise in the media about discovery of fraud was
different from being able to prove allegations of fraud in the court,
adding that; "The President and his men should stop media trial and
playing with bogus figures. This is because as it is today, President
Buhari is not fighting any corruption. Rather, he is engaging in
political persecution in his bid to weaken opposition both in the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and within his own party, the All
Progressives Congress (APC)."
"Even the president's party men are beginning to condemn openly the
trial of people accused of corruption in the media, with newspapers
quoting Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) on Saturday as describing it as
convicting the suspects without giving them fair hearing.
Governor Fayose counselled the president to purge himself of the blood
of military dictatorship running in his veins, stop using his fight
against corruption to persecute those opposed to his government and
begin to structure his government programmes and policies, including
the fight against corruption in line with the laws of the country.
He said; "When your own men are corrupting an institution like the
judiciary just because they needed to win back states like Rivers,
Akwa-Ibom, Taraba and others that they lost at the polls, thereby
causing the courts to give conflicting judgments, it is morally wrong
for you to go outside the country and complain about such a judiciary.
"When your party men are encouraging people to commit perjury and
confess to rigging elections just to discredit electoral victories of
PDP and those made to confess to committing these crimes are allowed
to walk the streets free just because they are serving the interest of
APC, such a president lacks moral rights to complain about any
institution stalling his fight against corruption because his own
party men are number one promoters of corruption.
"The President must therefore act like a democratically elected
president that he is by respecting the judiciary, which is a separate
arm of government before his complain about the role of the judiciary
in his fight against corruption can be taking seriously."
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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